Study to estimate value of Green Bay fishery

Fond du Lac — Over the last couple of decades, Green Bay has established itself as one of Wisconsin’s most important sport fishing destinations.

But how important is it? Or put another way: What is its value?

With the support of Walleyes For Tomorrow, a team of social scientists has embarked on a multiyear project to find out.

Matthew Winden, assistant economics professor at UW-Whitewater, is leading the project, properly termed a “socioeconomic study of fishing in the Green Bay region.”

“Fishing is more than a popular recreational activity,” Winden said. “It supports jobs and draws tourism to the region. Having good data is vital to making good resource management decisions.”

John Stoll, director of the Center for Public Affairs at UW-Green Bay, is assisting with the work.

Walleyes For Tomorrow has pledged $15,000 for the study. The total cost is estimated at $20,000, Winden said.

Data for the study will be gathered through angler surveys.

Winden and Stoll unveiled a draft of the survey Monday evening at the Walleyes For Tomorrow office in Fond du Lac.

The researchers used club members as a focus group to go through

the survey and offer comments and suggestions for changes.

The draft survey presented 51 questions, ranging from favorite fish species to number of times the respondent went fishing in Green Bay last year to number of rods and reels they own.

“Mine won’t go back to my wife, will it?” quipped one club member.

The responses are confidential, Winden assured him.

The survey took about 15 minutes to complete. It will be available as a paper document that will be mailed or handed to anglers and as an electronic form accessible via the Internet, according to the researchers.

The target audience is people who purchased a Wisconsin fishing license. The researchers will design the study to sample across the seasons.

The first surveys are expected to go out March 1. The study will continue through April 30, 2018.

Winden said they’ll require a minimum of 1,000 responses, but expect to get many more.

For purposes of the study, the Green Bay region includes Brown, Door, Kewaunee, Marinette and Oconto counties.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will assist by helping to distribute the survey with its creel clerks or other employees.

The researchers didn’t have to reinvent the wheel for the Green Bay project.

Stoll led a similar study in 2006 of Lake Winnebago. That work estimated fishing had an annual economic impact of $234 million and supported 4,500 jobs in the Winnebago region.

Winden, then an undergraduate, worked for Stoll on the Winnebago study.

Green Bay could well have the most valuable sport fishery of any region in Wisconsin.

At 1,626 square miles, the bay is vast and supports a wide range of popular fisheries.

Leading the way in Green Bay is walleye, traditionally the most desirable sport species in the state. Through a mix of environmental improvement, habitat projects and stocking, the bay’s walleye population is large and self-sustaining.

Walleyes were stocked in the bay from 1973 to 1984, according to DNR records. Walleyes For Tomorrow helped fund and perform habitat improvement projects.

The smallmouth bass, musky, brown trout and yellow perch fisheries have also drawn anglers to the region for many years.

And over about the last decade, a very strong winter fishery for whitefish has developed.

“The bay is a premier fishery, and we want to be able to put some numbers on it,” said Mike Arrowood, chairman of Walleyes For Tomorrow. “Our club is more than willing to help this type of work.”

Winden said the methodology has been thoroughly reviewed to eliminate bias.

“We’re very careful to not put our thumb on the scale in either direction,” Winden said. “This will be exciting to apply the science to the Green Bay fishery.”

The professors plan to have students code the data as surveys are returned, so preliminary findings may be available in early 2018. The final report is expected in 2019.